Monday, October 30, 2017

VTech Sleepy Glow Bear Review

If you've been following along on my Facebook or Instagram accounts lately you're probably aware of our sleep troubles with baby girl. To put it bluntly she's never slept well {not unless she's attached to me}. This has been the case since day 1, the night she was born the midwives made me co-sleep because she refused to settle without me. After she came home we tried rocking, shushing, patting, boobing, using a dummy as a replacement boob, the bassinet and the cot, but most nights I'd resort to co-sleeping from sheer exhaustion. There's only so many hours you can rock and shush a baby while functioning on no sleep, at some point it becomes more dangerous being upright holding a tiny human while delirious than it is sleeping together. So that's what we did, until I got to the point I thought my baby was just broken and I took her to sleep school.

When we got home from sleep school things were going great, for about 3 days, and then things started slowly deteriorating until we were back at square one. As luck would have it when things started going pear shaped {again} the Sleepy Glow Bear arrived on my doorstep for baby girl. To be honest when I agreed to review it a few weeks before I didn't even realise it was a sleep aid {shows you how sleep deprived I was}, I simply thought it was an interactive bear toy. So, when it arrived smack bang in the middle of sleep regression hell I was pretty excited! Even though sleep school hadn't really helped {it did while there, just not at home}, I was cautiously optimistic the sleepy glow bear would give us some reprieve, after-all sleep aids were one thing we hadn't actually tried and it couldn't really get any worse.

The Sleepy Glow Bear is a soft and cuddly sleep aid designed to be used from birth. It combines a soft glowing night light, white noise & music options with a soft squishy body for gentle visual, auditory and tactile stimulation to help soothe babies off to sleep. The bear has 3 different touch buttons on his belly that either play loving phrases, sing-a-long songs, white noise or nature sounds {there's more than 70 different sound options}. The volume, light intensity and length of play time can all be adjusted via the control panel inside the bear.

When we first started using the sleepy glow bear I introduced it during day naps because I wanted to test out her reaction to it without further upsetting night time sleep {or lack thereof}. Because it was day time I initially used the bear without the night light option and set the volume as low as possible. I also used the bear in the top corner of her cot as far away from her as possible because she was only 5 months old and I'm paranoid about SIDS. After a few days of figuring out which noise she liked the most {for us it's the first nature sound option} it actually worked really well for day naps. She soon learnt her song and being in the cot meant it was time for sleep and she'd fall asleep with minimal fuss. Hallelujah.

After about 2 weeks of day naps with the sleepy glow bear I decided to introduce it at night time as well since she'd formed a sleep association with it. We also added the night light option on low as she seems to like a bit of soft lighting as she falls asleep at night. For some reason at night she needed to be rocked to sleep while listening to the bear, rather than falling asleep on her own in the cot. Using the bear on low volume, 30 minute timer and low glow night light worked well at night time getting her to sleep, but unfortunately it didn't help her stay asleep during the night {although to be honest I haven't found anything that helps her sleep longer than 2-3hrs}.

I love that the bear has so many different sound options, so you're pretty much guaranteed there'll be one your baby will like. For us the first nature tune is always a winner at bed time and she also likes the first melody from the heart button {but just when playing, not at sleep time}. I love that there's a timer which can be set for demo, 15 min or 30 min, for us 30 minutes was the best option, but other babies may fall asleep fine within 15 minutes. The only limitations I've found is that you can't go through the sound options without continuously pressing the button and working your way through each sound, so if your baby likes the fifth sound you need to press the button 5 times, you can't just pick that tune. It hasn't really been an issue for us though as she loves the first tune anyway. The only other way I think it could be improved is if there was an option to have the sound continuously playing, which may help keep babies asleep longer.

If you have a non sleeping baby like mine and you're looking for a sleep aid I'd definitely recommend giving the sleepy glow bear a try, even though it doesn't help her sleep for longer periods of time, it's definitely helped her go off to sleep which was half our battle. It's also a lot cheaper than other white noise/sleep aid toys on the market so it's a smaller outlay and it can still be used as a cuddly toy if on the off chance it doesn't improve your bub's sleep. Babies are fickle little creatures and what works is constantly changing {especially with every developmental leap, teething etc} so at the moment mine has decided she'll no longer sleep in the cot and prefers to be with me again, but we still use the sleepy glow bear when falling asleep at night {and it's actually quite effective at putting me to sleep too}.